Hi,

On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 11:07:00PM -0500, Ross Singer wrote:
> Well, CUFTS is probably not an option, for various reasons.
>

I'd like to echo Ross's sentiments (and respond to Rob's question about the stability of CUFTS resource IDs). CUFTS's IDs are
just database table keys, so they wouldn't be suitable outside a particular CUFTS installation. They may be useful in a
consortial environment (which is what CUFTS comes from) but CUFTS wasn't designed as a global service.

> This seems like something that probably should be extended to the
> cataloging community at this point.  It's technically simple
> enough to create a registry of the resources, but if it didn't go
> into catalogs/databases/etc., there's no point in even pursuing
> this.  If only our local apps were to use this, it wouldn't be
> worth the effort to maintain it.
>
> I think we've seen enough interest in the code4lib arena to be
> able to make a claim to its usefulness in a technical sense.
>

I agree with Ross that the discussion here demonstrates there is a gap that needs to be filled, and that there is considerable
overlap among groups (IESR, Ockham, ISO/CD2146) already addressing the problem. The DLF's work is also very important -- maybe
the need described in this thread could be met with something incorporating elements of the DLF's Registry of Digital Masters
and its ERM specification.

However, I'm not totally clear on the range of potential uses for the registry we're all describing, even though several
people have explained what they want for a particular application. For example, do people want to query a registry and get
back attributes of a database product (vendor, titles indexed, etc.)? What form would this query take? Do people simply want
to use it as a "name authority" for products to assist collection development, authorization management, etc.? How would a
registry be maintained? Perhaps discussion on this list should turn to a proper list of functions (and some use cases) for
such a registry.

Mark

Mark Jordan
Acting Coordinator of Library Systems
W.A.C. Bennett Library, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada
Phone (604) 291 5753 / Fax (604) 291 3023
[log in to unmask] / http://www.sfu.ca/~mjordan/